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North versus South, or Music in Search of Englishness (based on the materials of contemporary Northern England)
Authors: Karavaeva D.N.
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This article presents results of a historical and anthropological study of the Englishness discourse in its national, ethnic, and regional perspectives (Britishness, Englishness, and Northerness) drawing on the materials collected in Northern England (UK). Herein, the author considers the case of musical discourse (poorly studied in the academic literature) of the English identity used both among musicians and commentators, researchers and the public. Music is an important part of English cultural heritage, and such genres as “English folk” and “world music” that are currently growing more popular are involved in the identity formation and transformation. Englishness is mostly considered among folk discourse participants as a “lost”, “ignored” identity that needs to be re-opened / re-created / saved. Despite the desire of musicians to fit into a multicultural context, English folk, like the Englishness concept itself, remains in the anthropological and historical sense “monocultural”, white, and opposed to contemporary multiculturalism and Britishness.
Northern (regional) identity discourse occupies, to some extent, a marginal position in the national Englishness discourse, and sometimes it`s difficult to compare it with common southern Englishness variants. The specificity of the region and its local communities, class identity and de-industrialization, regional branding, and the concept of the “North – South divide” (with a strong pattern of unequal relations between “northern periphery” and “southern metropolis”) play the main role in the Northerness discourse. Regional identity of the North is more artificial and more of a political category as compared with local identities of separate counties and towns.